← SONGS

Sweet Child O' Mine · Guns N' Roses

EXERCISE 12 OF 51
Groove I
114 / 182 BARS COVERED
0 / 51 PASSED · 4 BARS LIT · IN THE CHORUS, CHORUS 2, CHORUS 3
PART B
CHORUS
PART K
CHORUS 2
PART K
CHORUS 3
PART M
PART O
PART S
OUTRO
7 groovesGOKMS+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 12
FILL · 7
LAND · 7
RUN · 2
JOIN · 8
LINK · 8
SECTION · 6
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Sweet Child O' Mine on drums

182 bars of 4/4 at 123 BPM, about 5:55 of playing, on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot.

60 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
123 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
182
LENGTH
5:55
DIFFICULTY
60/100

silence through bars 1-8, ride through bars 9-14, toms through bars 15-16, ride through bars 17-24, hi-hat through bars 25-40 and ride through bars 41-56, and 11 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 74, 102 and 114-127, and 7 more places -- 18.9% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    74
    1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
CC |x-----x---------|
RD |--g-x---x-g-x-g-|
SD |----x-------x---|
BD |x-----x---x-----|
Sweet Child O' Mine -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

7 fills to learn, played 24 times: bars 15, 16, 24, 40, 72, 88 and 18 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 43 exercises -- the grooves, the fills, and the joins between sections, which is where players actually come off -- and puts them in the order a teacher would. Each one opens on a reduction you can already play and adds the notes back a rung at a time, with a tempo to reach and a gate to pass before the next.

  1. The grooves the song is built on -- O, G -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- K -- 5 exercises, about 35 minutes.
  3. Through Part B and the Chorus -- 4 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 1 exercise, about 16 minutes. Open above.
  5. Through the Chorus and Part K -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Through the Chorus and Part K -- 3 exercises, about 23 minutes.
  7. Through Part K and the Chorus 2 -- 3 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  8. Bars 57-113 -- 6 exercises, about 28 minutes.
  9. and 5 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Sweet Child O' Mine?

123 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in sixteenth notes. The room plays it at any tempo from a quarter of that up to the written one, against the record where the record can follow.

Is Sweet Child O' Mine hard to play on drums?

60 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 45 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

182 bars, about 5:55 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 43 exercises over 13 sittings, about 25 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom, kick and hi-hat foot. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Sweet Child O' Mine?

7 fills to learn, played 24 times: bars 15, 16, 24, 40, 72, 88 and 18 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 182 BARS ANALYSED